In recent years, there have been dramatic improvements in communications technologies that make bandwidth available for data and voice transmission. These improvements have resulted in ubiquitous networks, such as the Internet, and have brought about rapid change in the way that people communicate and exchange information. In fact, networks have become so ubiquitous that there is a frequent expectation that people are reachable via communications technologies at any time.
One of the rare times when people are unable to access data networks efficiently, particularly high-bandwidth networks, is on aircraft, ships and other vehicles where access is limited to low bandwidth access or not available at all. Notwithstanding this deficiency, people or passengers on such vehicles have a frequent need or desire to access high-bandwidth networks to gratify personal, business or entertainment needs. Personal and business needs might include receiving and sending emails, making telephone calls, sending and receiving facsimiles and accessing the internet to, for example, obtain information or make transactions. Entertainment needs may include accessing the internet and ordering and receiving personalized content such as video or music on demand services. All of these services are likely to be desired by vehicle passengers because during vehicular travel there is typically an abundance of idle time which may be devoted to consuming such services.
Conventionally, wireless telephone links have been available to passengers of vehicles. These links have been used to place telephone calls and to connect mobile computers to the internet via an internal modem in the mobile computer. Such links have conventionally been available over land but not available during trans-oceanic flights or crossings. Conventionally high-bandwidth services have not been available anywhere. Ocean crossings raise special difficulties because of the lack of access to terrestrial networks.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide access to high-bandwidth networks to passengers in vehicles such as aircraft and ships. There is a further need to provide links to high-bandwidth networks that are extendable to places where terrestrial service is not available. There is a further need to provide a network infrastructure on vehicles to facilitate delivery of high-bandwidth network services to passengers.